1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications, and, more particularly, relates to a method and system for automated handling of alarms from a fault management system for a telecommunications network.
2. Description of Related Art
The present invention is a method and system for automated handling of alarms from a fault management system for a telecommunications network, thus improving the performance and efficiency of the telecommunications network.
Presently, various methods and systems are used for monitoring faults within telecommunications networks. Often, these are called fault management systems. Such fault management systems are crucial to network providers, including telecom providers and/or Internet service providers, because of the need to proactively monitor and rapidly address network performance and degradation issues. For example, Agilent Technologies, Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif. markets and distributes a software product under the trademark FM eXEL that serves as a fault management system. Specifically, this software product is designed to monitor and control network devices, such that service outages and degradations are reported to the network provider in substantially real-time. This and other software products are widely used by network providers.
Regardless of the particular fault management system selected for monitoring a network, in most cases, alarms or messages associated with network conditions are transmitted to a Network Operating Center (“NOC”) established by the network provider, which is typically a centralized facility staffed by operators (e.g., technicians and engineers) trained to respond to such alarms. When a NOC operator receives an alarm from the fault management system, which is typically displayed on a computer monitor, the NOC operator must evaluate its significance. If the alarm relates to a critical component or aspect of the network, then the NOC operator will take immediate and appropriate action. For example, the NOC operator may dispatch a repair crew to the location of the problem, or the NOC operator may adjust certain network devices to compensate for an identified problem by transmitting instructions to one or more network devices. As one skilled in the art will recognize, various well-known methods and systems exist for executing such corrective actions. However, if a particular alarm is relatively insignificant, or if there are insufficient resources to deal with the alarm, or if the NOC operators are busy tending to more critical alarms, then there might be a delay in responding to a particular alarm, or the particular alarm might be completely ignored.
Because of the irregular rate and volume of alarms from a fault management system, a particular NOC may not always have the staffing necessary to address all alarms from the fault management system in a timely fashion, which may ultimately result in service degradation and decreased network performance. Alternatively, if the network provider staffs a NOC based on estimated peak periods of activity, there is an associated labor cost.
Thus, there is a need for a method and system for automated handling of alarms from a fault management system for a telecommunications network, preferably a method and system in which certain actions are initiated in response to one or more alarms from the fault management system without the need for the intervention of a NOC operator. Such a method and system would allow for the level of alarm traffic generated by a fault management system to be effectively filtered or reduced, so as to allow the NOC operators to focus their efforts on addressing more critical faults or network performance issues. Furthermore, it would be desirable that, in such a method and system for automated handling of alarms, the appropriate response to one or more alarms from the fault management system could be based on or configured to local, regional, national, and/or international network conditions.